Pesticide alternative now in use in Davao Norte plantations

It is with great interest that I read Ceres Doyo’s column “Bad Bananas and Collateral Damage.” (Inquirer, 8/13/09) While my affiliation to Davao is limited to the fact that my wife and her two brothers were born in Davao City, my concern is in my sincere belief that somewhere, somehow, there is a better, safer and more mutually beneficial way of protecting bananas from pests than the aerial spraying of harmful chemical pesticides.

It may interest Doyo, and the banana growers most of all, that a solution to protect bananas from the Black Sigatoka virus (Mycosphaerella fijiensis) has been found. This was brought to my attention by my Japanese friend, Morihisa Ono, who is a fruit and vegetable distributor in Gumma Prefecture in Japan.

In 2008, Ono told me about a natural organic pesticide, made from neem extract, which he had developed with Yasuhito Narushima, a Japanese farmer producing tea leaves in Shizuoka Prefecture. Basic materials of crushed neem seeds and shredded neem leaves are mixed with fish meal and other organic materials into a slurry, which is then fermented using the same fermentation techniques used in producing Japanese rice wine and yam wine (known as sake and shochu, respectively). The fermentation lasts for two months, with constant stirring to ensure equal levels of fermentation of the mixture. To save on production costs and ensure a steady input of raw supplies of neem seeds and neem leaves, they set up production facilities for the neem extract at the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam.

The underlying principle in the application of the neem extract is not to use it as a tool to directly swat away and kill the Black Sigatoka virus and the Panama Disease. The neem extract provides the basis by which the plant, be it a banana or a papaya or rice, absorbs the natural and organic materials in the neem and strengthens the plant’s resistance to pest infestation. Several field tests conducted in banana farms in southern Vietnam as well as in several banana plantations in the Santo Tomas and Kapalong areas of Davao del Norte Province have shown the effectiveness of the neem extract in eradicating the Black Sigatoka virus. Aside from being an organic pesticide, neem extract is also an excellent fertilizer which provides sustenance to the plant while rejuvenating the soil without the use of any chemical.

I will be very happy to provide Doyo with documented test results both from laboratory tests and field trials. I hope that with her help, the banana producers will accept the neem extract as an acceptable alternative to the dangerous and harmful practice of aerial spraying. –Philippine Daily Inquirer

—JOB M. AMBROSIO,
job_ambrosio@yahoo.com